Grizzly Con Man

Timothy Treadwell's passion for grizzly bears was unlike that of anyone else. He attempted to live among these massive creatures as one of them. Although he portrayed his mission as a selfless mission to protect and serve the bears, further inspection revealed otherwise. In his documentary, Grizzly Man, Herzog subtly reveals the truth hidden in the margins of the story as it was originally depicted. He uses methods such as allowing the camera to just a few moments longer than the last question of the interview. In theses moments, the audience gets a peek back stage where the facades of the people being interviewed are framed by reality rather than the drama of the documentary. This comparison gave the audience grounds to base the claims made by Treadwell's friends and colleagues. 

Where Timothy Treadwell suggested magic and wonder in the light of a selfless act, Herzog revealed mild disinterest of a large predatory animal and the self motivated pursuit of a misdirected disgruntled man. Treadwell's relationship with the grizzlies was equally as manipulative and dangerous as his relationships with women. In a poetic form of truth, Treadwell's selfish drive to get as close to grizzly bears as possible terminated with his own death, the death of his girlfriend and of a grizzly bear. This ending illustrates the way manipulative relationships ultimately damage the object of love or lust as much as the manipulator, if not more. 

Not only did he reveal the truth behind Timothy Treadwell's motives and the nature of his relationships, Herzog managed to reveal truths regards Jewel Palovak through the use of his clever filming techniques. At one point in his interview with Palovak, Herzog listens to the audio footage of Treadwell and his girlfriend's death. In response his response to hearing the audio footage, Herzog says, "Jewel, you must never listen to this." He even goes further and suggests her to destroy it. As written by David T. Johnson in his analysis of the documentary, "Herzog need not prompt us any further in sensing the scene's importance, which accounts for minimalist aesthetics (the long pauses, the relatively static camera)," (Johnson, 509). These aspects of Herzog's style of filming exposed truth in Jewel Palovak's otherwise fabricated responses. She seemed to be lying when she suggested that she agreed with Herzog's advice. In a great form of dramatic irony, the present day audience would be well aware that Palovak was putting on a front in this scene, as it is currently known that this audio footage has been leaked onto the internet. Considering Palovak had the only copy of this tape (the original tape that Herzog advised her to destroy), it is fairly easy to assume that she did not destroy the tape and likely had a hand in the internet leak. All of this current knowledge, further supports the truth Herzog revealed or even predicted at the time he created Grizzly Man.